Bleda called a halt. Grey light was seeping into the world, an orange glow in the east as the sun clawed its way over the edge of the world.
“Douse your torches,” he called out, throat dry. He thrust both of the torches he was carrying into a stream, then walked along the flank of his horse, took the torch strapped to his saddle and plunged that into the water, another hiss and burst of steam. Finally, he strode back to his second mount, Dilis, having a long-earned rest from carrying him, and took the torch fastened to her saddle, too, and doused that one. Behind him a hundred and eighty warriors did the same.
He squatted beside the stream, drank from a cupped hand, then filled his water bottle.
“Drink,” he said to his horses, leading them to the stream-bank. “We will not be stopping for a while.”
They dipped their heads to the cold water, Bleda standing and looking behind. His warriors were spread along a hillside path that followed the stream bubbling out of these hills. They were tired, dust-covered, but an air of satisfaction rolled off them. Of a ruse gone well.
Yul was sitting on a boulder, running a whetstone along his sword-edge.
“They followed us, then,” Ruga said.
“Aye,” Bleda said, looking past his small warband and into the distance. “And it looks like all of them.”
Behind them, threading between two gentle hills, was Jin’s war-host, thousands of lit torches making the air about them glow. They were low in a valley, dawn not touching them, yet.
The most vital part of his plan had been for Jin’s warband to cross his campground long before there was a hint of dawn’s light. Otherwise they would have seen the tracks of eight hundred horses heading south-west, away from Bleda’s force of one hundred and eighty, who Ruga was leading south-east, towards the mountains that bordered the desert lands of Tarbesh.
“They will know, now, though,” Ruga said. “Even the Cheren can count.”
“Aye,” Bleda grunted.
“They could still turn back, once they realize they’ve been tricked,” Ruga said, “or split their force and send half of them back. It will be a long journey, and a big gap, but they still have spare mounts. Ellac doesn’t.”
“I know. They must continue to follow us. All of them.” Bleda strode to his horses and unbuckled a strap, pulling out a rolled package from behind his saddle. He shook it and held it out. A blue deel, blood staining the left arm, and a vest of lamellar armour. He dropped it on the ground beside the stream.
Ruga looked at the clothing, then at Bleda.
“You are relying heavily upon Jin’s hatred for you,” she said.
“I killed her father. Shamed her with a Ben-Elim half-breed.”
Ruga nodded. “I would hate you, too.”
“MAKE READY TO RIDE!” Bleda cried out. He took his bow from its saddle case and strung it, checked his sword over his back, made sure it wasn’t sticking in its scabbard. Finally, he checked the hidden knife in his lamellar coat, the one he had used to cut Uldin’s throat.
His warriors went through similar routines, then they were climbing into saddles, leather and iron creaking and jangling.
Bleda shifted in his saddle, then looked at Ruga.
“It’s going to be a long day. Lead us on,” he said, and then they were moving out, the drum of hooves filling the air.